A/N: I'm back! What's that, I wasn't actually gone? Oh well. Blah blah blah, new chapter and all that whatnot.
To all of my reviewers: Thank you so much! Your kind words make me very happy.
Disclaimer: I don't own Skype. Or Hetalia.
"I thought you said this was a good store."
"It was…when it was still here…"
Unfortunately, Abbie, Gilbert, Andersen and I were standing in front of a boarded up shop on a rather busy little street full of all sorts of shops.
"This is so not awesome! I thought you said this place sold good clothes," said Gilbert, frowning.
"Well, I was speaking of the last time I was here. Obviously it closed sometime between then and now," I replied testily.
"What now?" asked Andersen, though he looked somewhat relieved.
Abbie opened her mouth to reply, but snapped it shut, squinting her eyes in concentration, as if she was listening for something. Not sure of what she was listening to, I was about to ask when I heard snickering coming from a nearby alley. Rather familiar snickering…
I walked over to the alley to see if my suspicions were confirmed; they were.
"Hey Vlad! What are you doing here?" asked Abbie, waving at her friend.
"Yes. What are you doing here?" I asked, somewhat annoyed at the Romanian.
"He was probably just following the awesome me! I'm just that hard to resist," replied Gilbert, laughing.
"I just wanted to see how this would turn out," answered Vlad, grinning.
"So you were following us," said Andersen.
"Not at all!" exclaimed Vlad, waving away the accusation.
"Then what were you doing?" I asked.
"I was just playing the stalking game!" replied Vlad, cracking up at the expressions on all of our faces.
"The stalking game?" asked Andersen, utterly bewildered.
"It's where you pick one person to follow around for however long you want, and the only rule is that you're not supposed to be seen by the person you're following!" explained Vlad happily.
"So you were following the awesome me after all!" exclaimed Gilbert, patting a little chick that had wandered up to him. He picked it up and placed it on his head, where it chirped at his own pet chick-Gilbird or something.
"Nope!" said Vlad, laughing when the albino fell to the ground sobbing. "Is that normal?"
"Yes," answered Abbie and Andersen at the same time.
"So who were you following?" I asked, ignoring the sobs coming from the curled up Prussian on the ground.
"You! It's really funny to see you get worked up all the time," replied Vlad.
"What! I do not-"
"You're doing it right now, Arthur," said Abbie absently, looking down the street. Quickly I shut my mouth, and felt my cheeks heat up slightly at my mistake.
"Hahaha~ Arthur's cheeks are red, Abbie's eyes are blue-"
"And if you finish that poem I'll kill you!" I snapped, feeling my cheeks heat up even more.
"Hehe, you just finished it for him," laughed Abbie.
"Anyway. What now?" asked Andersen, lightly kicking a still sobbing Gilbert.
"Why don't we just walk down this street and see what's in all of the other shops?" asked Abbie, gesturing to the buzzing street.
"Alright! But the awesome me gets to chose what store we go in first," exclaimed Gilbert, leaping to his feat. How the man managed to change moods so quickly I could only guess.
"Never!" exclaimed Abbie, taking off down the street in search of a store to dash into.
"You won't beat me this time!" yelled Gilbert, tearing off after her.
"Hey! Wait up!" called Andersen, racing off after his friends.
"No way I'll be left behind!" exclaimed Vlad, running off after the self proclaimed 'Awesome Trio'. Self proclaimed being the key phrase.
"Why am I friends with such strange people?"
Shaking my head, I raced after the other four, keeping my head down so I would catch up to them faster. That turned out to be a rather bad idea.
"Artie look out!"
"What?"
By the time I looked up, it was already too late. I toppled over the pile of nations that had accumulated on the ground and fell on top.
"Oof!"
"Ow!"
"Not awesome!"
"Artiiiiiie!"
I shook my head and looked around, trying to figure out what had happened. It looked as though Abbie had fallen over, and Gilbert, who was hot on her heel had fallen on top of her. Andersen must not have seen the two, and fallen on them himself, which was what must have happened to Vlad as well.
"Hey Miss, are you alright?" asked a young man hurrying over with a couple of his friends and helping Abbie up.
"Yup!" exclaimed Abbie, brushing herself off. "Thanks!"
"You're most welcome Miss…"
"Abbie! My name's Abbie Jones," said Abbie, finishing the lad's sentence.
"A pleasure, Miss Jones. My name is Rory Mackay. These two are Patrick and Rowan Flannery. That other lad there is Dylan Kendrick," said Rory, gesturing to each person in turn.
Rory himself had dark auburn-ginger hair swept over to one side, though it kept falling in his dark green eyes. Patrick and Rowan seemed to be brothers, with both of them having bright orange hair and hazel eyes and freckles. Dylan had light brown hair and chocolate brown eyes. Patrick was the tallest, standing an inch or two taller than me, with Dylan just a half inch shorter. Rory and Rowan seemed to be the same height as myself.
I felt myself scowl as they all crowded around Abbie, asking if she was alright or needed any help with anything.
"Nice to meet'cha!" exclaimed Abbie, shaking hands with all of them.
"The pleasure of meeting you is all ours," said Dylan, smiling sweetly.
"What kind of music do you like?" asked Rowan excitedly.
"Most of us like punk rock," said Patrick, grinning crookedly.
"'Cept for those two crazies. They like Irish punk," laughed Rory, pointing at the two brothers.
"S'not nice to point," said Patrick, pulling Rory into a headlock.
"It's not nice to put people in headlocks either," Dylan pointed out, sighing.
"I'm open to any kind of music really," answered Abbie, ignoring the scuffling friends.
"Whoa! Cool. But what's your favorite?" asked Rowan eagerly, watching Abbie closely.
"Why so many questions?" asked Andersen, obviously disliking the lack of attention he was getting.
"It's not a crime to be askin' questions, now is it lad?" asked Rory, glaring at Andersen.
"You're not from around here, I suppose?" I asked, noting each of the accents they spoke with.
"Not at all. We're all cousins, we just came to London for a short break from our daily lives. Rory there is from Scotland, Dylan's from Wales and Rowan and myself are from Ireland," said Patrick, looking up from his task of nearly choking Rory.
"Pat! I'm from Northern Ireland!" complained Rowan, scowling.
"Well, this has been fun and all, but the awesome me thinks it's time we all go and get lunch," said Gilbert, cutting off any response that otherwise would have come.
He grabbed Abbie and Andersen's wrists and started dragging them off. As he was pulling them away, Abbie grabbed Vlad and my wrists.
"Whoa there lad! There's no need to be goin' off somewhere in a rush. We were just headed to lunch ourselves," said Rory, blocking Gilbert's escape.
"Oh cool! Where were you headed to?" asked Abbie, smiling happily.
"You're pretty," sighed Rowan absentmindedly.
"Oh great! You probably just crept her out and now she won't want to go have lunch with us!" exclaimed Patrick, pulling his brother into a headlock.
"Why would you say that out loud, anyways? That's really strange," said Rory as he grabbed his cousin's head to give him a noogie.
"Ow! Lemme go!" yelled Rowan, squirming around.
"Just like my brothers," I muttered, slightly exasperated.
"What was that, Eyebrows?" asked Rory, turning around to face me.
"You seem just like my brothers," I repeated, though this time slightly annoyed. "And don't call me that."
"Whatever you say, Eyebrows," said Patrick who had released his brother.
"Let's go," I said, my eye twitching. I reached out to grab Abbie's hand when Rory place himself between us.
"Shouldn't the lass have a choice in the matter? Or are you just an overprotective boyfriend or something?" asked Rory, glaring at me.
I felt my face heat up as I snapped, "No, it's just that maybe I don't trust you."
"And why's that, Eyebrows?" he asked, scowling at me.
"He's obviously jealous," said Vlad and Dylan at the same time.
"I am not!"
"Oh, I see. You fancy the lass, and don't like it when other people try to mess with whatever you have or something, right?" said Rory with a slight smirk.
"…Th-that's preposterous!" I spluttered, my face red.
"Artie, since it's bothering you so much we can leave, if you want," said Abbie, a concerned look on her face.
"You don't have to do that for him, Miss Jones. He's just jealous," said Patrick, frowning slightly.
"But he's my friend, and friends are nice to each other," replied Abbie stubbornly.
"Alright then. See you around. Maybe," said Rory, waving farewell.
"Come on, let's go Artie," said Abbie, grabbing my hand and tugging me along, away from her new friends.
"Well that went wonderfully," said Vlad, rubbing the back of his head.
"So, what do you think Feliks?"
Abbie was holding up two dresses to her phone, where she was Skyping with Feliks. One of the dresses was black with one shoulder and fell down to mid thigh. It had small pleats on the top, and the bottom was elegantly draped, the two parts separated by a small band of silver patterns. The other one had spaghetti straps and fell slightly higher than the black one, and this one was made of silver and gold fringe.
"You should like, totally go for the silver and gold one. It's way more pretty than like, the black one, and it'll totally have more movement when you walk in it," said Feliks after a moment of looking closely at the two dresses.
Beside me Gilbert and Andersen groaned, there was no way anyone would let them live this down. The entire time they had been muttering to themselves about how they hoped a longer dress would be picked.
"Okay, thanks Feliks, bye!" replied Abbie, waving goodbye on her phone as the Pole hung up. Quickly, she grabbed one dress in her size and then grabbed two others, that looked to be about the right size for the two nations standing next to me.
"Why?" exclaimed Andersen dropping to the floor, shaking his fist at the ceiling.
"Here! I'm going to go buy this now," said Abbie, handing a dress to the other members of her trio.
"No Abbie wai-"
"She's gone…"
"What's the big deal?" I asked, looking at the two depressed nations beside me.
"We were hoping Abbie would buy these for us…" replied Andersen, glaring at his dress, as if trying to light it on fire with his gaze.
"Why on earth would you do that?" I asked, bewildered.
"What would you think if the awesome me came up to the register to buy a dress? For myself?" asked Gilbert, gripping his dress tightly.
"Right…"
"Come on you two, hurry up!" exclaimed Abbie, hurrying back over to us.
"Fine…"
"Whatever…"
"Artie, I have to ask you a question," said Abbie, turning to look at me.
"Of course, what is it?" I asked, feeling uneasy at the serious tone of her voice, and slightly sad looking blue eyes.
"You like me better like this, don't you?"
A/N: Poor Gilbert and Andersen... what strange looks they must have gotten... Just for reference, Rory, Patrick, Rowan and Dylan are NOT Arthur's brothers. Even though they kind of seem like it. Just random humans that are exactly like Arthur's brothers. ALSO. I have no idea on whether I want to make Abbie stay Abbie or change back to Alfred or some random halvsies kind of thing DX SO I shall put up a poll on what to do, and whatever result has the most votes is what will happen. Why a poll? I'm way too indecisive on these things. WOO DEMOCRACY!
I most dearly wish that thou hast enjoy-ed this work of scripture that hast been put hither. (lol wut?)
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